It has become the practice in the garment industry to reinforce pocket openings in jackets and trousers with a binding strip of greater wear resistance than the fabric of the garment. Generally automatic feeding machines are used for prefolding the binding strip and positioning the same on a main workpiece ahead of a pair of sewing needles at a sewing machine. The workpiece and the strip are pushed together past the sewing needles and past a blade which cuts a longitudinal incision between parallel seams stitched by the needles. Downstream of the sewing station a pair of angled or angular blades is provided for cutting V-shaped incisions at the ends of the longitudinal incision. Such angular blades are commonly mounted on a complex positioning and actuating mechanism disposed below a work table supporting the sewing machine.
The state of the art is representatively illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,747,545 and 3,814,037, issued July 24, 1973 and June 4, 1974, respectively. The angular cutters are generally separately mounted and separately actuatable.